Morning-walkthrough: March 29, 2012

Morning-walkthrough: March 29, 2012

Super Bowl L is just around the corner and the Cowboys plan on making a bid. The fact the 2010 event in North Texas was accompanied by all the charm, hospitality and shrewd planning of a yard sale apparently leaves Dallas undaunted.

One more time . . . the rule change to the 12-men-on-the-field penalty enacted on Wednesday would not have changed anything in the Super Bowl. If a player is trying to leave the field - as Justin Tuck was for the Giants during the Patriots final drive - the play is allowed to go on and will not be whistled dead.

Donovan McNabb is going after Mike Shanahan by pointing out the won-loss shortcomings of quarterbacks under Shanny. McNabb says RG3 won't fit either. McNabb was 5-8 under Shanahan in Washington and threw 14 touchdowns and 15 picks.

With the Super Bowl heading to New Orleans, Roger Goodell's in a sticky situation with that city given he's performed a vivisection on the team.

The old Raperoo went round-and-round with Jim Harbaugh about Randy Moss.

Pete Carroll, Mark Sanchez' coach at USC, says Sanchez is in a tough spot with Tim Tebow in town.

Khudobin simply ‘has got to be better’ for Bruins

Khudobin simply ‘has got to be better’ for Bruins

BOSTON – There wasn’t much for Anton Khudobin to say after it was all over on Thursday night.

The B’s backup netminder allowed four goals on 22 shots while looking like he was fighting the puck all night. It was one of the big reasons behind a tired-looking 4-2 loss to the lowly Colorado Avalanche at TD Garden.

The loss dropped Khudobin to 1-4-0 on the season and puts him at a 3.02 goals-against average and .888 save percentage this season. Three of the four goals beat Khudobin despite him getting a pretty good look at them. The ultimate game-winner in the second period from John Mitchell just beat him cleanly on the short side.

Matt Duchene beat Khudobin from the slot on a play that was a bad defense/bad goaltending combo platter to start the game and MacKinnon ripped a shorthanded bid past the Bruins netminder to put Boston in a hole against a woeful Colorado team.

Afterward, Khudobin didn’t have much to say, with just one good performance among five games played for the Black and Gold this season.

“Four goals is too much. That’s it,” said a to-the-point Khudobin, who was then asked how he felt headed into the game. “I don’t know; too much energy…yeah, too much. I don’t know. I just had a lot of energy and I think it just didn’t work out my way.”

Khudobin didn’t really expand on why he had too much energy, but perhaps it’s because the compacted schedule has really curtailed the team’s ability to hold team practices on a regular basis. Or maybe he was just disappointed it took him a week to get back between the pipes after playing his best game of the season against the Carolina Hurricanes.

Either way Claude Julien said that the Bruins needed better goaltending on a night where they weren’t at their sharpest physically or mentally, and Khudobin clearly wasn’t up to the challenge this time around.

“We needed some saves tonight and we didn’t get them. He’s got to be better. A lot of things here that we can be better at and take responsibility [for],” said Julien. “But at the same time, you got to move on here. To me it’s one of those nights that had we been smarter from the get go, and we would have had a chance. Now we’ve got to move forward.”

Clearly, the Bruins have no choice but to move on with a busy schedule that doesn’t let up anytime soon, but one of the lessons learned from Thursday night is that the Bruins need to get better backup goaltending from a collective crew (Zane McIntyre and Malcolm Subban included) that’s won just once in eight games behind Tuukka Rask this season.

More importantly around here, the Patriots now are in position to win out and claim the AFC’s No. 1 seed.

Prior to the Raiders loss, Oakland would have been the top seed if both they and the Patriots won out. Now, the 10-2 Patriots have a leg up on the rest of the conference. The Raiders’ road stays tough. They are at San Diego and Denver and host the Colts.

The Chiefs have a more favorable close to the season with home games against Tennessee and Denver before their season finale at San Diego.

The Patriots’ road over the final four is no picnic though, beginning with the Ravens and at Denver before the last two hosting the Jets and traveling to Miami.